Promotion and prioritisation: Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group’s 20th anniversary project

Article type
Year
Authors
Lindson-Hawley N1, Hartmann-Boyce J1
1Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group, UK
Abstract
Background: The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (CTAG) was founded in 1996. To mark our 20th anniversary, we are conducting a promotion and prioritisation project (CTAG taps) funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research.

Objectives: To:
1. raise awareness of CTAG, and achievements so far;
2. identify areas where further research is needed in tobacco control from a wide, stakeholder perspective;
3. identify CTAG-specific research goals from a stakeholder perspective;
4. raise awareness of these goals.

Methods: The project has a structured plan to establish priorities influenced by the approach of the James Lind Alliance. The first step is a two-phase online survey. The first phase was sent out to CTAG stakeholders, including healthcare workers, researchers and the public, asking for the questions they would still like to see answered by tobacco control research. This information (~700 questions from 300 participants) was collated and sent out to the same participants to be ranked. The end product will be a list of the most important questions that tobacco research needs to address. This will be disseminated widely via publication in an academic journal, social media and conferences. The final step in the prioritisation process will be a workshop (June 2016) led by independent facilitators, where stakeholders will be presented with the survey findings and discuss these in the context of CTAG specifically. The outcome will be a list of areas CTAG specifically needs to focus on and ways we may do this - i.e. new reviews, updates or changes to existing reviews. The aims and priorities of CTAG beyond 2016 will be disseminated to our author pool, other researchers and healthcare workers who may be interested in getting involved with our work or using it to inform other research and clinical practice. In addition, a key goal of the project is to promote CTAG’s anniversary throughout the year. We have been doing this through social media such as blog posts and Twitter, as well as other methods.

Focus: This talk will outline the methods of the CTAG taps project, progress, lessons learnt and findings so far.